Genealogy is like a jigsaw puzzle, but you don't have the box top, so you don't know what the picture is supposed to look like. As you start putting the puzzle together, you realize some pieces are missing, and eventually you figure out that some of the pieces you started with don't actually belong to this puzzle. I'll help you discover the right pieces for your puzzle and assemble them into a picture of your family.

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Thursday, October 13, 2016

Treasure Chest Thursday: Captain P. Rychner

This is a business card (or possibly a calling card) for Le Capitaine (Captain) P. Rychner. It is 3 7/8" x 2 3/8" and is yellowed with age but might have been white or off-white originally. It has a large brown spot in the upper left corner, along with two dark holes, one near the bottom of the brown spot and one about 3/4" below the first. This business card is one of four items that were held together with a straight pin which rusted over time. I removed the straight pin but have kept the four items together. Captain Rychner's card also includes his position, Commandant la
Compagnie sanitaire I/1, which means Commander of the Health (Medical?)
Company I/1. I don't know how to interpret the I/1.

The postcard is 5 7/8" x 3 7/8". It was written in Tunis, Tunisia on March 23, 1916 and mailed on March 25 to Mr. and Mrs. Jean La Forêt in Algeria. I believe the signature of the person who sent it is D. P. Rychner, which would appear to be the captain whose card is shown above.

The note is on a torn piece of paper that is 8" x 3 7/8". It might be the bottom part of a regular sheet of paper. The date is April 9 (my birthday!), but no year is included. The note does say Dimanche, which is Sunday, and April 9, 1916 was a Sunday, so I'm guessing that's when it was written.

The second business card is the same size as the first, 3 7/8" x 2 3/8". It is for G. Ramboud, whose address was 12, Rue Broussais, Algiers. There are notes in French on the front and back.

All three of the above items have two holes from the straight pin that held everything together.

And next are the transcriptions and translations of the French texts.

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

Postcard:

(I really wish there wasn't a postmark right over the message. It made it much more difficult to read!)

So this is an interesting collection of items. Rychner's business card is logically connected with the postcard, as it appears to be Rychner who sent the latter. The only thing that connects those two items with the note and Ramboud's business card is the fact that I received them pinned together. The note does mention Tunisia, however, and Rychner was in Tunisia when he wrote the postcard in March.

One important question here is who wrote the note on the torn paper and the note on Ramboud's business card. If it was Rychner, then Jean was in Tunisia at some point and met Colonel Boineau there. It makes sense that Rychner wrote these notes, because he would have sent them to Jean, and that's why they were kept together. If Jean wrote them, then logically he would have sent them to Rychner (or whomever), and then he shouldn't have had them anymore.

Another question is just who G. Ramboud is, other than someone in Algiers. The only part he appears to play here is to have his card be a piece of scrap paper on which to write a note. None of the information here connects him with Rychner, Boineau, or Jean.

Was Boineau the person whose address was in Grenoble? Or was it Rychner, who wrote on the postcard that he would write again on his return to Switzerland? Did he send the note and Ramboud's card from Switzerland?

The note on the front of Ramboud's business card was written originally in pencil and then copied over in ink. I noticed that the lines doesn't all match up well. It might be that the pencil was written by Rychner and copied in ink by Jean. Whoever wrote over the pencil in ink missed the word "guerre" to the right and below the name Ramboud on the card.

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About Me

I am passionate about genealogy. I love researching my own family and everyone else's, and I will happily talk your ear off about the information I have found. I like fitting all the pieces together and figuring out which people belong to which families. I also love to find the stories behind the people and learn as much as I can about why they did what they did. I look at the historical context around the people I research.

I am lucky enough to do what I love for a living. I am a professional genealogist who specializes in
Jewish, black, forensic, and newspaper research. I am also active as a volunteer in the genealogy community. I edit two genealogy publications: ZichronNote, journal of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish
Genealogical Society (SFBAJGS); and The California Nugget, from the California Genealogical Society. I am the programming and publicity director for SFBAJGS, and a former board member of Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy, African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, and California State Genealogical Alliance. I have been on the staff of an LDS Family History Center since 2000; I am currently at the Gresham (Oregon) FHC.

I am a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy, Genealogical
Speakers Guild, and California Genealogical Society. Before
becoming a professional genealogist, I worked in publishing for
many years as an editor, indexer, translator, and compositor.

When not involved in genealogy or publishing, I love singing, cooking, needlework, gardening, historical reenactment, and painting small miniatures. Way back when, I was in the USC Marching Band (The Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe) for five years (I've performed at two Super Bowl halftime shows and one World Series game, and I can be seen in "The Naked Gun"), one of the best experiences of my life.